Numerous industries use computers to model various situations and make predictions concerning the probable occurrence of certain events. Examples of such industries may include the petroleum industry, the nuclear industry, the weather/geographical prediction industry, and the financial industry.
For example, the petroleum industry relies heavily on using powerful computers and highly specialized software programs to determine underground oil and gas reserves and forecast the likely production from oil field simulations. These simulations using computers allows oil companies to better evaluate the risk of committing to activities that often cost many billions of dollars. The software programs used to carry out this work are often highly specialized/complex, and there are huge amounts of input and output data to be handled and assessed. Unfortunately, this results in the engineers needing to focus on data management and software issues, rather than focusing on the petroleum engineering aspects of the project.